


Grimsfall

by pixelated



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, American History, Demon!Sirius, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Open Ending, Psychological Horror, Romantic Soulmates, Shapeshifting, Soulmates, Tarot, medium!Remus, palmistry, that i mostly made up, the grim, tiny bit of blood, tiny bit of homophobia, unexplained phenomena, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:55:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21890800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixelated/pseuds/pixelated
Summary: There is a legend in the old city of Grimsfall that a large, black creature used to emerge from the forest at night, and anyone who met its gaze would be driven to madness before the thing dragged them into the depths of hell.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 87
Kudos: 310
Collections: RS Fireside Tales Vol.2





	Grimsfall

**Author's Note:**

> Demons are like obedient dogs; they come when they are called.  
> — Remy de Gourmont

There is a legend in the old city of Grimsfall that a large, black creature used to emerge from the forest at night, and anyone who met its gaze would be driven to madness before the thing dragged them into the depths of hell.

There had been stories about it ever since the first English settlers arrived, ever since they’d come and killed the Natives, claimed the land as their own, and built their homes upon what had once been sacred soil.

Some folks claimed to have seen it and called it a shapeshifter, alleging that either a beautiful woman or a handsome man had tried to lure them from the outskirts of the village and into the forest, and within the span of only a few years, hundreds of men and women had gone missing from the town. The disappearances increased exponentially, and after fifty years those hundreds became  _ thousands _ .

Several hunting parties had gone into the woods to put the beast down, but most of the men never returned before turning their weapons on one another. The few that did come back were changed, babbling incoherently about some sort of demon dog that clawed its way out of the earth, jaws snapping wildly as it chased them out of the trees and back into the town. 

Those people were never the same.

In the early 1690s, when folks were being hanged by the neck for presumed witchcraft not too far up the coast, the people of Grimsfall were caught up in their own hysteria and razed the town and adjoining forest by fire in an attempt to kill the beast. When they rebuilt in the 18th century and the creature did not return the townspeople believed they had found solace at last and buried the stories as nothing more than an elaborate folktale. By 1850, the town had been completely transformed into a bonafide city.

Today, Grimsfall is a peaceful place. Tourists travel from all over the country during autumn to learn the history and stories of the town and to view the vivid scenery of the changing leaves against the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Crime is low, small businesses are thriving, the locals are happy.

Downtown near the train tracks there are long lines of row houses that have been converted into storefronts on each street, all with charming grey stone edifices that have been standing strong since the 1800s, their painted doors and shining glass windows cleaned up and made pretty to attract shoppers.

A hand-shaped sign advertising palmistry and tarot readings hangs inside one of the front windows of a shop called  _ Moonstone _ before purple velvet and gold-tasseled curtains, and the little plaque on the splintered wooden door reads  _ No Soliciting _ .

Inside the sitting room of this little abode, amid the wafting aroma of mingling frankincense and patchouli, is where Remus Lupin— self-proclaimed medium— conducts his business. It’s a small area with peeling floral wallpaper, threadbare oriental rugs, and sturdy antique furniture mostly found at the second-hand shop down the street and the occasional rummage sale. At the counter he keeps little jars of crushed herbs, canisters of teas, bars of hand-poured soap, bowls of crystals, and vials of snake oil labeled as home remedies for a myriad of ailments; the woo-woo bullshit he shamelessly peddles to gullible housewives, edgy teenagers, and wannabe Wiccans.

Hey. It’s a living.

Behind the counter, there’s a pretty brocade chaise beside a record player on one side, and toward the back, near the kitchen, a round wooden dining table with two chairs. Through the pocket door and into the kitchen is where he is now, an inky indigo shawl thrown over his shoulders as he dips a bag of orange and clove spiced chai into his mug and leaves it on the counter to steep. 

It’s a dark, gloomy morning; it’s been steadily pouring since last night, and the rain pelting against the roof is far too calming to properly wake Remus up. He spreads marmalade on his toast and sips his tea and steps into the front room, slippers shuffling across the creaky wooden floorboards as he ambles along lazily before settling himself amongst the myriad decorative throw pillows on the chaise. 

Remus likes his little place here in Grimsfall. Despite growing up on the wrong side of town on the wrong side of the tracks with a single mother working two jobs and trying her very best and not having much more than his thrift shop clothing, an old cigar box filled with pretty rocks he called crystals, and a deck of playing cards that he used to tell fortunes on the playground, he’s built himself a decently comfortable life with his many unusual talents, his tiny niche of whimsy that this spooky little town needed without exactly knowing so. 

He’s got a few friends that visit, several male suitors that come and go, and a surprisingly long line of regular customers, but mostly his neighbors think him to be a bit strange and eccentric, as if he actually believes any of the new-age bullshit he spews. He is perpetually too weird for the weirdos, too queer for most of the queers, and if you were to ask him if he’s happy Remus would smile and say yes, but if he were being honest, he’s lonely, and longs for something more than this.

As he’s finishing off the bitter dregs of his tea with one final gulp and carrying his dishes to the sink, there’s a quick flash of lightning and a sharp snap of thunder that rattles his bones as much as his window panes and makes him jump and drop his mug and plate, the shattered white porcelain skittering across the tile floor.

“Shit,” he curses out loud, hand over his heart as if to keep it from breaking free of his rib cage, then laughs quietly as he reaches for the broom in the corner with trembling hands. As he kneels and sweeps up his mess into the dustpan, there’s another burst of white light and a near deafening crack, and he’s suddenly engulfed in the darkness. 

Remus groans. He stands and tips the dustpan into the trash, leans the broom against the wall, then makes his way toward the basement door.

It’s even darker in the basement— practically pitch black. He grabs onto the banister of the stairs and begins to descend, stepping carefully, and that’s when he hears the distinct sound of spraying water echoing in the shadows. As if this morning couldn’t get any worse.

“Seriously? Well that’s three in a fucking row,” he says, sliding his feet out of his slippers. He bends to roll up the long hems of his billowy pants and dips a tentative toe into the water. It’s not very deep, but it’s ice-cold, and he’s just about had it with this day already. Really, he should’ve complained to his landlord more the last time the basement flooded, but his rent is cheap and he didn’t want to be a pain in the ass. He’s just glad he doesn’t keep anything valuable down here.

He sloshes over to the breaker box against the far wall, hops up onto the dryer, and makes an attempt to flip the circuits on and off, but it’s no use. He’ll just have to wait the outage through. So instead, he grabs his flashlight from the shelf above the dryer and drops his feet back into the freezing water, clicking the light on and flashing it over the area of the basement.

There’s a good four inches of water covering the floor, spilling out from several holes in the wall. Remus sighs. The basement is shitty, all concrete, bricks, and cement. It’s half underground, and the water-tight sealing is old and needs re-patching. This happens every time there’s a big storm like this, and Remus swears under his breath. There’s not even anything he can do about it until the rain eases up.

He turns and shines his light back toward the stairs, and that’s when he sees something that’s never happened before— there’s a strange bubbling coming up out of the floor, right in the middle of the room. He moves close to it and points the flashlight down, and sure enough, there’s a huge, gaping crack in the cement floor. It almost looks as if it’s been pushed upward— there’s a slight incline around the slice through the concrete— and Remus wonders what the hell this is happening for.

“Oh, just open up all the way and take me down with you,” he yells at no one, his voice reverberating off of the walls. He splashes back to the stairs, picks up his slippers, slams the basement door, dries his feet with his kitchen towel, then stomps back into the sitting room to grab his phone to call his landlord. 

After this nightmare of a morning, he figures he deserves a nap. 

  
  
  


Of course Albus, his landlord, had brushed off his concerns.  _ It’s an old building, these things happen, _ he’d said.  _ Just wait until the storm passes, then clear out the water yourself. Surely you have a shop-vac? _

Remus wishes landline telephones were still a common enough thing so he could’ve slammed the handset down as he hung up instead of aggressively chucking his iPhone onto the dining table and cracking the screen.

That’s  _ five _ .

With no electricity and no business, Remus locks his door, lights several pillar candles, and leaves them around the house so he can make his way through without busting his ass or breaking anything else. After a light dinner and a shower, he invites one of his boyfriends over to pass the time. 

When Gideon arrives, they forego the chit chat and immediately fall into bed, arms and legs all tangled together as Gid lavishes Remus’s torso with sloppy, open-mouthed kisses before taking him into his mouth. He makes Remus come, then fucks him and makes him come a second time, throwing every one of Remus’s worries temporarily aside. 

Later, when the candles have melted down to waxy puddles, their cascading ripples dried and stuck to their brass holders, Remus lies naked in bed smoking a black clove cigarette, pulling the sweet smoke down into his lungs and releasing it from his lips. He wonders briefly, as he glances over at Gideon already snoozing beside him with his bright orange hair messy against the pillow and his long, gangly legs twisted up in the top sheet, if this is all there is to life; if the height of his excitement is a power outage and a boy toy in his bed.

With a sigh, Remus stubs out his cigarette, blows out the candle on his nightstand, and pulls the duvet up over both of their bodies. Hopefully the power will be back on in the morning, then he can set to cleaning up the basement. For now though, he settles in close to Gideon with dreams of something more than this simple life spinning in his head.

  
  
  


Remus is awakened in the hazy early morning, moon still high in the sky, from a decidedly peaceful sleep by a strange rumbling, more intense than when the freight trains roll by in the night, followed by the sound of a rather loud  _ BANG _ below him. He sits up in bed and looks to his left— Gideon is still dozing soundly beside him. Remus shakes him until he wakes, groggy and rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes with an annoyed grumble.

“I heard something,” Remus whispers, but why he’s trying to be quiet, he’s not quite sure.

“What kind of something?” Gid asks. He yawns as Remus throws back the duvet and leaps from the bed, pulls his robe around himself and forgets his slippers before he’s around to the opposite side of the bed and pulling Gideon out of bed by his arms.

“I don’t know, just come with me!”

“Fine, alright. Pass my pants, would ya?”

Remus’s intuition guides them down the stairs, through the kitchen, and to the basement. He clings to Gideon’s shoulder and opens the door, sliding one hand along the wall to flip the light on, but no luck. He grabs his flashlight from the countertop and passes it to Gid before they head down the stairs together.

“That’s strange,” Remus says softly.

Immediately, he’s noticed how quiet it is, which means the rain and flooding have stopped for good. The second thing he’s noticed is that the floor is relatively dry— the water is gone, which makes no damn sense, and as he tries to sort this bizarre phenomena out in his head the beam of the flashlight dances over the strange crevice in the floor— lo and behold, the crack is now a huge hole. 

“Christ, Remus. What happened to your floor?” Gideon marvels, inching closer to the pit.

“Hell if I know. The basement was all flooded earlier and now this hole is here. Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Remus prods the edge of the area with his foot. A thick, black, tar-like mud oozes out of the ground and covers his toes. He jerks his foot back and attempts to wipe the gunk off on the concrete before he kneels beside the hole as Gideon shines the light down into it. 

There’s either nothing to see or it’s so deep and dark that he can’t decipher anything, but it’s apparent where all the water has gone. At least that’s one problem taken care of.

“No. I mean, obviously the water has gone down into it, but it also looks like… nah, that makes no sense.”

“What?”

“Well… I was gonna say it looks like something pushed the concrete up, but that’s ridiculous.”

Remus pauses, looking up at Gideon from his prone position on his knees.

“Something? Like what?”

Of course, neither of them have any ideas and now there’s this massive pit in the floor of his basement that Remus doesn’t know what to do with, so they head back upstairs and Remus calls Albus again. 

“I can’t get anyone out there until Monday, Remus,” Albus says, and Remus thinks that’s a huge load of bullshit but he doesn’t actually say so. Instead, he sighs and tells Albus that’s fine, then curses himself for being such a pushover.

He’s too agitated to go back to bed and too cold with the heat off at the tail-end of autumn, Gideon has gone home and he can’t make tea without electricity, so he grabs a box of cereal and takes a whiff of the milk before committing to pouring it into his bowl. He scowls. It’s spoiled. He digs a spoon out of the drawer and eats his granola dry.

By evening the rain has fully stopped, but the sky is still hazy grey and the wind continues to shake the trees and beat against the wooden shutters. There’s another strange rumbling coming from the basement and by now Remus is sure there’s some sort of weird sinkhole that is going to suck his whole house down. Curiosity gets the better of him though, so he grabs his flashlight again and makes his way down the basement steps.

And that’s when he sees it.

A pair of silver eyes shining in the dark.

The huge, black thing standing in the middle of the basement seemingly drops from standing on two legs to four and begins to move toward him, growling, and Remus doesn’t even think as he starts to inch away. With every backward step he takes, the thing takes another step forward. 

When the backs of his ankles bump the bottom stair, Remus turns and makes a run for it. He scrambles up the stairs as quickly as he can, tripping over himself and slamming his shin against the sharp, splintered edge of one step, but the beast is right behind him. It darts up the stairs and Remus screams, clambering upward on his hands and knees, then slams the door behind him. The last thing he sees is the silver glint of the animal’s eyes, its long pointed teeth, and the snap of its jaws as he slams the door in its face. The thing on the other side throws its body against the door, snarling, and with shaky hands Remus locks the door and backs away.

“What the fuck, what the fuck,  _ what the fuck,” _ Remus whimpers, his voice trembling as much as his hands, warm blood dripping from the wound on his shin and down his leg as he continues walking backward through the kitchen, eyes large and unblinking and still fixed upon the door, unsure of how strong the old wood actually is, when he steps on something sharp and pierces his bare foot. He yelps and collapses onto his backside before he twists himself to cradle his injured foot in his lap only to find a long shard of porcelain sunk deep into the arch. Remus grimaces as he smears the blood away and digs the shard from his skin, then looks back to the basement door.

The animal— whatever it is— scratches and barks madly at the door. Remus stands and continues backing out of the kitchen with a limp until he pulls the pocket door shut, locks that as well, and picks up his phone.

  
  
  


The thing seems to have calmed itself down by the time animal control arrives nearly an hour later. The name embroidered onto the ugly dirt-stained jumpsuit the old man on his doorstep is wearing says  _ ARGUS _ , and he’s got a catchpole in one hand with a plastic carrying crate in the other as though he’s going to take a rambunctious cat to the veterinarian.

“That’s not going to be big enough,” Remus says, gesturing toward the crate after he’s opened the door. Argus’s eyes rake over Remus from head to toe, taking in his flowing sleeves, his kohl-lined eyes, the crystal earring dangling from his right ear. He scowls like he’s going to catch The Gay by being this close to Remus, so Remus simply rolls his eyes and steps aside to allow the man into the house.

“I was told there was a raccoon,” Argus states. His voice is raspy with age and obvious tobacco use, and his steely blue gaze flickers over all the strange items in Remus’s sitting room slash shop.

“This thing is huge. It might be a bear. Can… do bears bark?” Remus asks uneasily, ruffling his fingers through his hair.

“A bear?” the older man questions, cocking a stringy grey eyebrow, the lines on his face deepening as he frowns.

“Yes, it stood on two legs. That’s a bear, right?”

“No, bears don’t bark. Dogs bark. How would a bear get into your basement, son?”

“I dunno,” Remus admits with a shrug. “How would a dog?”

“Well, that’s why we were thinking a raccoon.”

“This is most definitely not a raccoon!” Remus argues as he leads Argus through the kitchen, hobbling on his injured leg and foot both now bandaged and hidden beneath his clothing. “I’ve never seen a bear-sized raccoon.”

“From what it sounds like, you didn’t see the thing at all. You pullin’ my leg here?” Argus asks accusingly, as if Remus has a reason to trick him into coming over for a chat over tea. He doesn’t want this man inside his house at all.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, unlatching the sliding lock on the basement door. “My power is out. It’s dark down there but there was definitely something bigger than me.”

“Uh huh.”

“And I really think you should have backup,” Remus continues. “Is there someone you can call?”

“I can handle it. I’ve got a tranq gun if things go south.”

“You brought a weapon into my home? I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Calm down boy, before I use it on you,” the old man snaps at him, making Remus’s jaw drop. 

Remus throws his arms up into the air, silver bracelets jangling around his wrists. “This is wildly unprofessional!” 

“Do you want me to get the damn raccoon or not?”

“Fine.” Remus snatches the flashlight from the countertop and hands it to Argus, then yanks the door open and stands aside. “It’s your funeral.”

Rolling his eyes, Argus sets the crate beside the door and takes the flashlight from Remus. He clicks it on as he starts down the steps, and Remus decides he should probably stay by the door, just in case. 

Downstairs, there’s only the sound of Argus cursing to himself and shuffling and sliding boxes around, presumably to locate the animal, but Remus knows that thing was too large to hide. After no more than twenty minutes, the old man trudges back upstairs, leveling Remus with another one of his creepy glares.

“Nothin’ down there but a giant hole and a waste of my time,” he spits nastily, shoving the flashlight toward Remus before bending to pick the crate back up by its handle. “I don’t know what kinda game you’re playin’ here or what ya got down there in that hole, but I’m leaving.”

“It’s gone?” Remus asks, shutting the door. “But there’s no way. This thing was huge! It chased me up the stairs and snapped at me!”

“Yeah, sure,” Argus mutters, hefting the crate up under his arm. “Whack-job.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re nuts and I’m leaving.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I am. Goodbye.”

Remus huffs in annoyance as he follows Argus back through the house and watches him practically stomp to his van parked by the curb. Rolling his eyes again, Remus closes the door— but he doesn’t have much time at all to contemplate the waste of taxpayer money on this man or the disappearance of the basement creature. Remus turns around and is shocked to see another man in his parlour, kneeling in front of the counter and peering into the display case. 

Remus jumps back with a little gasp, bumping into the door. “Jesus, you scared the hell out of me,” he says with a shaky laugh, hand over his thumping heart. “How can I help you?”

The man stands, unfurling his long limbs, and it’s only now that Remus realizes just how tall he is. He’s got at least six inches over him. Remus follows the long lines of his lithe body with his eyes  _ up, up, up, _ swallowing thickly when he reaches that face. He’s unreasonably handsome, black-haired and tan-skinned, angular, like a Cherokee deity carved into mahogany and clad in modern denim and leather.

“I am most definitely not Jesus,” the stranger says with a sweet baritone that wedges deep into the pit of Remus’s belly. Grinning, he holds out an amiable hand. “The name’s Sirius.”

It’s coincidence, of course, that when Remus takes hold of the hand his lights finally cut back on, flooding the room with a sudden blinding cascade of light. The refrigerator hums from the other side of the wall; the microwave beeps; the heater kicks on, clanking and whirring, noisy with disuse. 

Remus laughs nervously, waving his hand. “Sorry about that. That damn storm knocked my power out.” He turns away from the man for a moment to adjust the lighting in the room for a dimmer, softer atmosphere by clicking off one of his lamps. “Now, what can I do for you, Sirius?”

“Oh, I was just perusing your wares,” Sirius says with another look around. “This is an interesting little shop. Do you live here as well?”

“I do,” Remus responds, striding across the room and behind the counter, leaning back against it with as much nonchalance and grace as he can muster while faced with the prettiest man he’s ever seen in the flesh and hobbling on an injured leg and foot. “Are you visiting? I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“Do you remember the faces of everyone you see?” Sirius questions, a sly, crooked smirk pulling at his lips. Remus could swear he’s flirting. 

_ Alright then, _ he thinks.  _ Two can play at that game. _

“No, but I certainly would’ve remembered you,” he states rather bluntly, taking a chance and returning the smile unabashedly with a coquettish sort of look thrown at Sirius, mentally praying that he’s not misunderstanding here and that Sirius is not offended by this sort of thing. 

But Sirius’s smile widens and he laughs quietly, looking down and away as he tucks a loose lock of his long hair behind his ear. “I’m just visiting. I used to come to Grimsfall fairly regularly, but it’s been years.”

_ Is he blushing?  _ Remus wonders. He can’t help but imagine all sorts of delicious things he’d like to do with this man torn from the very fabric of his own filthy dreams, but he pushes that aside for the time being. He is a business owner first and foremost and Sirius is a customer, after all.

“Well, browse away. Let me know if you have any questions. I also do tarot, palmistry, and crystal gazing if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“Palmistry?” Sirius asks, lifting an eyebrow. “Is that where you hold my hand and tell me when I’m gonna fall in love?”

He’s definitely flirting, and damn it all if Remus doesn’t want to cradle that large catcher’s mitt of a hand within both of his own and delicately trace the grooves of Sirius’s palm with his fingertips. Instead, he bites his lip playfully and leans back against the edge of the counter. 

“Something like that. I’ll give you a new customer discount. Twenty bucks, regularly thirty. What do ya say?”

“That’s a very tempting offer.”

“Well, I am all about temptation. Dancing with the devil and all that.”

Sirius snickers again. “Actually, I just popped in out of curiosity.” He glances at his wristwatch and tuts. “And I’ve got to go. I’ll be back, though.”

“Alright. Limited time offer on that palm reading, you know.”

“Next time, most definitely. Have a good day, Remus.”

“You too, Sirius.”

Sirius turns and leaves, and with a sigh, Remus folds himself onto the chaise with his legs curled in beside him and his feet up. It isn’t until several minutes later that it dawns on him that he’s certain he never actually gave Sirius his name.

  
  
  


Remus spends the rest of the day cleaning out the spoiled food from his fridge in between customers, and he’s particularly upset about the pint of salted caramel ice cream he pours down the drain. But he’s glad to have the heat back on, his kettle bubbling, fresh herbs in the dehydrator, and the flow of people coming and going has been steady as always. On top of his usual sales, Remus bullshits his way through three card readings to cap off the evening before Lily Potter waddles in with a round, pregnant belly and a box of leftover danishes from her own bakery up the street as he’s flipping the sign on his door to  _ Closed _ .

“Hey Re, how you doin’?” she asks as he’s taking the box out of her arms with a friendly kiss on the cheek. He sets it on the dining table and collapses into one of the two chairs, gesturing for her to take the other.

“It’s been one hell of a 48 hours,” Remus says, rubbing his temples. “That storm knocked my power out and flooded my basement, and now there’s a giant hole in the floor from who knows what. Then I was sure there was an animal down there but I now I’m starting to think I imagined that whole thing. I fucked up my leg and foot, broke some dishes  _ and  _ my phone, and got into an argument with a bigot.”

“Jeez, babe. You need a break,” she offers, raking her wavy red hair back from her face and into a high ponytail with the band on her wrist. “When’s the last time you went out and did anything with anyone that wasn’t work?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Remus sighs. “I guess I went out with Benjy a few weekends ago. And Gideon came over last night.”

“And are either of those going anywhere?”

“Why does everyone assume I want them to?” Lily interrupts him with a snort, but he waves a dismissive hand and continues on. “I’m fine with keeping things casual with both of them. Besides, the men in this town aren’t exactly beating down my door.”

They ramble on like this for a while. Remus makes tea for them both and they share the danishes while she tells him about her day at the bakery and how her little boy has been kicking away, he tells her about his encounter with Sirius, and before too long she leaves with a thank you bag of her favorite soaps. He washes their dirtied dishes and as he’s placing them in the drying rack, he could swear he hears someone whispering his name from the basement. 

He shakes it off. There’s been too much excitement and his imagination is running wild.

Tonight though, he has strange dreams of beasts who emerge from the mud, dead leaves, sex, and fire. He wakes up several times during the night frightened and shaking, but aroused and drenched in sweat. The smell of smoke and wet fur lingers in the air.

  
  
  


To Remus’s surprise and delight, Sirius returns the next day. It’s just past noon when he strolls in and Remus’s head must not be on quite straight because there’s something about Sirius that’s different from yesterday. Maybe his hair is cut or maybe it’s his clothes, something small, but Remus wants to say it’s the shade of his eyes– he doesn’t remember them being quite so grey and stark against his brown skin. Whatever it is, he’s even sexier today than Remus had remembered.

“Well, hello again,” Remus says with a grin from his place perched on the stool behind the counter. “Back so soon for that reading?”

“Actually, yes,” Sirius admits. “I don’t really believe in this stuff, but you’ve intrigued me.”

“I tend to do that to all the boys.”

Sirius laughs, and Remus can’t help but admire the sharp cut of his jaw, his straight, white teeth, the way his eyes crinkle up in the corners. Every little detail about him reads like someone has cobbled this man together especially for him to eye-fuck here in the middle of his shop. 

“Please, have a seat,” Remus says. “Either at the table or the chaise. Make yourself comfortable.”

Sirius opts for the chaise and Remus is quietly thrilled. He can cozy up to him under the guise of simply reading his palm– but maybe that is what Sirius has in mind anyway.

“Which is your dominant hand?” Remus asks as he steps over to him, and Sirius raises his left hand. Remus nods and settles himself on the chaise on Sirius’s left side, then reaches out with both hands. Sirius places his hand on top of Remus’s, and he’s surprised by the warmth of it— it’s hot but not clammy at all. He turns Sirius’s hand over within his own so that it’s palm up and chances a look up at the man beside him as his fingers delicately trail over his wrist and palm. 

Sirius’s face is placid but intense– his eyes are hard and seem to bore straight into Remus as he gazes into them. Resisting the urge to lean in and either kiss him or breathe in his scent— curiously similar, it turns out, to Remus’s spiced chai— Remus gives him a small smile before he blinks and looks down at Sirius’s hand. The lines here are very different than what he’s used to seeing, and he runs his fingers over the first line at the top, proceeding to mix what he’s read in books and what he can intuit from Sirius’s personality. It’s all delusional fantasy, but Remus loves the performance of it.

“Not everyone has every line,” Remus begins, “so the ones I’m able to read are only the most important aspects of your personality.”

“Alright,” Sirius says quietly, nodding.

“This first one is your heart line– that’s not to be confused with your love line. Yours is rather straight. This tells me your emotions tend to be quite intense. You’re passionate, romantic. You probably spoil your partner. It’s also deep, which means you worry a lot, and it doesn’t go all the way across your hand. You’re an independent man.”

“That’s pretty accurate,” Sirius agrees, looking from his hand to Remus with the tiniest hint of a smile. “Except I don’t have a partner.”

“No?” Remus holds his breath, staring back at him. Sirius is definitely flirting with him— so he flirts right back. “Well. If you did, they’d be very lucky,” he says and bites his bottom lip playfully. Sirius’s smile widens, and Remus doesn’t fail to notice the way Sirius’s thigh is pressed against his own, the heat of his body radiating outward and seeping into Remus. 

He looks back to Sirius’s hand. “The next one is your head line,” he continues, following the line with his thumb. “It’s quite long and deep, which tells me you’re ambitious, you tend to get whatever you want, and your memory is very good. You never forget when someone has wronged you— you hold grudges.”

“Yes. I’d say that’s all true.”

“Now, this one in the middle that cuts your palm in half vertically, that’s your fate. It’s faint, which tells me you’ve had failures, set backs, something holding you back from your goals. It’s also jagged. Do you struggle with making decisions?” Remus glances back up at him to find Sirius already staring at him.

“I was struggling with something, but I think I’m beginning to figure things out now.” He says this so gently that the rough timbre of his voice causes Remus shiver.

“Ah, well. Good then.” Remus quickly looks away. He can feel the heat in his cheeks moving downward, past his neck and shoulders to his chest and belly and pooling even lower. “Now… if you bend your pinky toward me a bit? Yes, just like that. The line here on the edge beneath your pinky is actually the love line. Some people have several or even none. You have just one, and it’s deep. So when you find someone you sync with, you’ll likely have a very strong bond and a lasting relationship.”

Sirius hums, it’s just a quiet sound low in his throat, almost like a growl, but something about it flusters Remus. He shifts in his seat, crossing his left leg over his right to obscure his obvious excitement, and leans in closer to Sirius, letting his fingernails graze the center of his palm.

“This curved one here,” Remus goes on, tracing the line, “is your life line, and this one is rather interesting because yours is doubled. It’s relatively rare. A doubled life line means you have a soulmate, if you believe in that sort of thing. You said you’re single, so perhaps you haven’t met them yet. The dominant of the two, which would be you, is also quite long, which typically means a long life, but it’s faint. That could mean you’re tired or stressed. You should take a vacation.”

“I am on vacation,” Sirius says, nudging Remus gently.

“Oh, right,” Remus laughs. “Of course. Well good, you need it.”

“You said the doubled line is rare… How rare, exactly?”

“Mmm, well I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’ve only seen one other.”

“Yeah? Who?”

Remus hesitates for a moment before he turns his hand over, pointing to his own doubled life line. “Not to make this awkward but… me.”

“And… are you seeing anyone?” Sirius questions as his own fingers smooth over the lines of Remus’s palm.

“I don’t have anyone serious,” he says, chancing to gaze back up at Sirius. “It’s hard for me you know, doing what I do. Looking like I do.”

“I think you’re absolutely lovely,” Sirius mutters softy, inching a bit closer. 

“Do you?” Remus asks, eyebrows raised, slightly taken aback by this confession. Realistically, Remus knows he’s attractive, but flirting with someone like Sirius is something he’d only been jokingly indulging in, a fantasy not taken seriously in the least.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you after we met yesterday.”

“Surely that’s only because I’m odd,” he suggests, but Sirius curls his fingers around Remus’s hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb.

“No. I just feel… drawn to you. I don’t actually buy into any of this shit, but something made me come to you. Something brought me here.”

“I find that very hard to believe.”

“You don’t have to,” Sirius whispers to him, “and you can tell me to fuck off, but I think you’re drawn to me, as well.”

“I… I don’t know,” Remus lies— he knows perfectly well what he wants. “Maybe.” He chances another look up at him through his eyelashes as Sirius takes him by the wrist, then lets his fingers slip up Remus’s sleeve, touching his arm with the most delicate brush of his fingers along the crook of Remus’s elbow.

“Tell me to stop,” Sirius says quietly, dipping his head down to press his nose against Remus’s cheek. He moves his hand from Remus’s arm down to his knee, sliding it slowly up his thigh.

_ I can’t,  _ Remus thinks to himself as he falls back against the pillows and Sirius looms over him. He’s never let a man hold this much control over him and he cannot shake this strange feeling off. There’s something alluring, something magnetic between the two of them, he can absolutely feel the pull of it, and as he turns his face toward Sirius’s, ready to give himself over and indulge in a kiss, his front door creaks open.

“Oh! Sorry, so sorry, Remus— Am I interrupting? Should I come back later?”

Remus pushes Sirius back with hands against his firm chest and his brain melts a bit at the thought of whatever muscles lie beneath his clothing. With an apologetic smile, he stands to greet Albus’s stocky little maintenance man on the other side of the counter who is looking thoroughly mortified, his blue eyes wide as they dart away from the two men on the chaise.

“Peter, ah— No, it’s alright. My um… my friend was just leaving,” Remus says, smoothing out his disheveled clothing.

Sirius looks slightly put out but thankfully gets the hint and stands, stepping over to Remus. He takes him by the elbow, rubbing his arm soothingly. “Let me pay you for the reading.”

“Don’t worry about it. On the house.”

“Alright. Can I see you again?” 

“Um.” He slides his gaze over to Peter who is still avidly avoiding eye contact by pretending to be interested in a celestial map on the wall. “Alright.”

“Tomorrow night? After you close?”

The insinuation is there, lingering between them like a thick curl of smoke from a stick of incense. Remus can make a good assumption as to what Sirius wants, and he wants it too, so he takes a deep breath as he falls into Sirius’s cool grey stare. “That would be perfect.”

With a tight-lipped smile, Sirius nods and moves around Peter to the door. He gives a little wave and then he’s gone again, leaving Remus feeling hot and shaken.

“Are you alright?” Peter asks when he finally looks back to Remus.

“Yes, just fine,” Remus assures him. “Sorry about that. I assume Albus sent you to look at the basement?”

“Yeah, something about a hole?”

“Right, follow me.” 

Remus waves him along and Peter follows him through the kitchen while Remus explains about the storm, the flooding, and the strange hole. He flips on the basement light and the two men head downstairs to look at the thing with Remus limping carefully ahead of Peter.

“What do you think?” Remus questions. “I honestly have no idea what happened.”

“Jeez, Remus,” Peter says, scratching his chin, brows up in confusion. He kneels beside the pit and picks up a piece of the broken concrete, then drops it into the hole. Both of them are silent as they wait for the sound of it hitting the bottom, but a full minute passes and there’s nothing. “How the hell deep  _ IS _ this?” he asks, more to himself than to Remus, and moves to stand back up.

Remus reaches out a hand to help Peter to his feet and neither of them say anything for a while— Peter just circles the pit a few times before looking back to Remus, shaking his head.

“Any ideas?” Remus asks him.

“Not a one. It looks like something pushed up out of the ground, but there’s nothing down there at all but dirt. It just… keeps going.”

“Something? Like an animal?”

“An animal?

“This is probably going to sound crazy,” Remus says, letting out a bit of a nervous laugh, “but I was pretty sure I saw something down here. Like a bear.”

“A bear? Why would a bear be in your basement?”

“I didn’t say it  _ was _ a bear, I said  _ like _ a bear. Just…” Remus waves his hands animatedly in the space between them. "I dunno, huge. What big animals burrow?”

“I dunno. Biggest thing I can think of that we’ve got around here are foxes, but no fox did this.”

“The thing I saw was much bigger than a fox.”

“What happened to it?”

“It just… disappeared. You think it could’ve gone back into the hole?

“Maybe, but it’s so deep. I suppose it could just be some strange natural occurrence,” he shrugs. “We could re-fill it with dirt or concrete, but there’s no telling how much we’d need. I’ll talk to some people and see what I can do.”

“Alright Peter. Thank you.”

After Peter leaves, Remus flits through the house making tea and having lunch between selling crystals and herbs to customers— a typical day. 

He decides to kill some time before closing by grabbing one of his tarot decks for fun and plops himself down at the dining table, extending his injured foot under the table to rest on the chair across from him. He shuffles the cards, cuts them, and draws.

The first one he flips over is The Devil, but the picture on the card is unrecognizable as anything Remus remembers ever purchasing. Instead of the usual goat-headed demon on its throne, it’s a being with a man’s body and the head of a black, wolf-like dog— teeth sharp and mouth snarling as it looks up at him from the table. Instead of a woman and a man bound in chains, there’s only one man kneeling at the feet of the demon-dog, unchained.

Remus can’t help but think of the animal he’d seen in the basement. Could it have been a wolf? But then, he’s sure he’d seen it standing on two legs. He shakes his head, flips the next one over, and blinks before reaching up to rub his eyes. 

It’s another dog-faced Devil card. He picks it up to examine it, but he’s certain it’s from the same deck. Why there would be two, he has no explanation. Furrowing his brow, he notices the kneeling man looks suspiciously like himself— white skin, light brown curls— but he shakes it off as mere coincidence before he flips the next card, then the next card and the next and they’re all the same. He turns the deck over in his palm, spreads the cards all out on the table in a curve, and there’s nothing but 78 black Devil-dogs staring up at him.

Remus scrambles out of his chair, knocking it over as he stands and stumbles. The ominous drawings seem to be laughing at him— he can hear them getting louder and closer, the sound of it floating up from below his feet, surrounding him, filling his head. He squeezes his eyes shut and places his hands over his ears, but it does nothing to drown out the sound.

An animal’s howl cuts through the laughter, and as soon as Remus opens his eyes the cackling stops. He looks back to the table, heart pounding, only to find a perfectly normal deck of cards spread out upon it.

He’d imagined the entire thing. He must be losing his fucking mind.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he releases a trepidatious laugh as he makes his way over to the door, promptly flipping the  _ Open _ sign to  _ Closed _ and locking the door before moving unsteadily up the stairs.

  
  
  


After another night of bizarre dreams of dogs and forests and sex, Remus gives up on sleep and rolls out of bed much earlier than usual. 

His date with Sirius is tonight and he wants everything to be perfect, so Remus takes his time showering and shaving and applying his makeup. He dresses himself in his favorite, most indulgent things— a midriff and shoulder baring top, loose-fitting silk palazzo pants, all sleek and black— and has a very light breakfast before opening the store and starting his day. 

Time creeps by like molasses, likely because his eyes keep flickering over to the antique clock on the wall, watching the long, bronze hands move slowly as he listens to the steady  _ tick tick tick _ that seems to be judging him like his mother used to wag her finger and tut him as a child when he’d done something silly. He feels utterly ridiculous now, having gotten himself all dolled up for this man, this stranger, about whom he knows nothing other than a first name.

At around a quarter to six, he pulls his shawl tighter around his bare shoulders like a warm embrace as he gazes down at his black lacquered fingernails tapping nervously on the countertop. He’ll be closing shop soon, and he isn’t quite sure whether he actually wants Sirius to show up or not. He can’t recall ever being this anxious over a date, and he mentally tells himself it’s not that big of a deal and to breathe, settle down, Sirius is only a man after all.

Just as he’s outside flipping the sign over for the evening, there’s a sudden, warm hand on his shoulder. He jumps, his own hand clasping his shawl as he spins around to find it’s only Sirius and his endearingly devilish grin.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to frighten you,” he says in that deep timbre that bores into Remus’s belly, staring down at him as Remus laughs timidly.

“That’s okay. Please— come in,” Remus assures him, holding the door open and locking it behind them as they enter the house. “Can I get you anything?” he asks. “Tea? Wine?”

“No, thank you.” Sirius gives a subtle shake of his head before looking Remus up and down. Another smirk flickers across his face and he reaches out to Remus, taking his hands gently into his own. “You look… incredible.”

“Thank you,” Remus responds, finally taking the opportunity to soak the entirety of Sirius in. “So do you.” 

He’s a stunning man, tall and broad and strikingly beautiful, and again there’s something off, something different about the way he looks from the previous two times Remus has seen him, although he can’t quite put his finger on it— the slope of his nose or the width of his jaw perhaps, but that would just be insanity. Remus shrugs the thought off and chalks it up to having only seen the man a few times.

“I have so many things I want to tell you, Remus,” Sirius sighs, looking a little bit pained. “Can I… Can we sit?”

“Yes, by all means,” Remus says, curiosity tugging at him as he leads Sirius back over to the chaise. He missteps on his injured foot and winces, hopping on it a bit before he takes his seat.

“You’re hurt,” Sirius says, knitting his eyebrows together. He reaches out, gesturing for Remus’s foot. “Here, may I?”

“May you what?”

“Put your foot on my lap.”

Remus pauses, squinting at Sirius curiously before lifting his leg and resting his ankle upon Sirius’s thigh.

“What happened?” Sirius asks gently as he gingerly removes the slipper from Remus’s foot and drops it to the floor. His hands are warm on Remus’s skin as he wraps them around the foot, stroking the arch where the wound has scabbed over beneath the bandage and stretches painfully when Remus walks.

“I saw an animal in my basement,” Remus starts to explain, and lifts his pant leg up to reveal his scabbed and bruised shin. “It freaked me out and I banged myself up pretty good running from it.”

Sirius frowns, keeping one hand on the foot as the other slides up to cover the injury on Remus’s shin. He closes his eyes and he’s very still for a moment, very quiet, then he removes his hands and says, “I never meant to hurt you. You frightened me as well.”

Remus can only stare at his leg in awe as the bruising begins to fade before his eyes, from a deep purple hue, to green, to yellow; can only watch in bewilderment as the thick purple scab shrinks down smaller and smaller until it’s gone, healing itself from the inside out and leaving Remus’s shin as smooth and white as it was before. He bends his knee to look at the bottom of his foot, carefully unwraps the bandage, and sure enough his foot has been magically healed as well. 

“How did you—” Remus breathes, not daring to move a single muscle as he keeps his gaze fixed steadily upon Sirius, finally realizing that his eyes, those bizarre silver eyes, are the same ones he saw in the dark. “What  _ are _ you?”

“I am what this town calls the Grim,” he says. “A demon. I am the dog you saw in your basement. I came from the earth.”

“From the pit? The... dog? What do you mean?”

“Yes. I’ve been down there for centuries, but you called me out.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did, Remus. You willed me here. You wanted a mate, and I’ve been searching for one for a long time.”

“Demons aren’t real. None of this is real,” Remus tries to reason with himself more than Sirius as he throws his hands up. “I’m just a guy trying to make a living.”

“I’m real,” Sirius says and gives Remus’s foot a little squeeze. “I’m right here.”

“Even if demons are real, they certainly wouldn't look like… like this,” Remus argues, gesturing a flippant hand over Sirius's form.

“What do you mean by that?” Sirius asks, arching a dark eyebrow.

“Well, you know,” Remus sputters and immediately feels the warm blush tingle up his neck. “Demons are supposed to be hideous. With horns and hooves and red skin. You’re…”

“Yes?”

“You know. Handsome.”

“A handsome devil?” he says. “There’s a reason for that saying, you know.”

“Devil?” Remus asks, pulling his foot away from Sirius, remembering the cards from earlier, the way the laughter had swallowed him up, and he’s certain at this point that he’s gone fully insane. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Remus, I would never hurt you. Look at me.”

“I am looking.”

“Is there anything strange about my appearance?”

“No, not at all. You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. I’m convinced you’re not even real at this point.”

“You don’t find that odd?” Sirius asks, and Remus isn’t quite sure what he’s getting at here. “Remus… I’m built to seduce you. I’m the physical manifestation of your deepest desires. I am all of your sexual fantasies personified.”

Remus pauses for a beat as he registers what Sirius has just said— despite it being utterly ridiculous, he’s right. Everything about this man, at least everything that he can see, has him completely entranced. Even Michelangelo couldn’t have crafted a more stunning work of art.

“All of them?” Remus questions timidly, suddenly terribly nervous and aware that this man, this  _ thing _ , must be able to read his mind to some extent. He feels splayed open and vulnerable there on the chaise as he clutches the discarded bandage from his foot in his hands, unsure how to next proceed.

“All of them. Did I get anything wrong?”

“No. You’re perfect.” Remus admits, and his thoughts begin to stray to what might be going on beneath Sirius’s clothing, and if he really is Remus’s ideal in every way. How does he taste? What does he look like? How does he fuck? 

Sirius laughs suddenly, softly, almost shyly. “I have to tell you, I do know what you’re thinking. And yes, I assure you, everything is exactly as you want it.”

“What? I’m not!” Remus protests, embarrassed. “I’m—”

“Look, it’s fine. That’s why I’m here.”

“Why?”

“Are you not getting this? Remus… I’m an incubus.”

Remus only blinks at him. “So you… what? Want to sleep with me and take my soul?”

“I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that,” he says, taking Remus’s hand and turning it over, then revealing his own palm. “You noticed it yourself. We’re soulmates. We’d be bonded for eternity if we mated.”

“There’s no such thing,” Remus whispers, snatching his hand back.

“There is. And I cannot take anything from you. You have to bend to me willingly. Come with me on your own accord.”

“Come where?”

“Home.”

“Where is home?”

“People call it Hell but… it isn’t anything like you’d think. You’d live forever with me. We could both be happy.”

“Why would I do that? I don’t want to live forever.”

“Let me show you everything you could have,” Sirius whispers, leaning in so close that Remus can feel the breath on his neck, causing him to shiver as goosebumps prick up over his skin. “Close your eyes.”

Remus only makes an attempt to fight the urge to give in momentarily before he does as Sirius says, shutting his eyes, and then he feels the gentle touch of Sirius’s hands cradling his jaw and pulling him in, feels the soft, warm lips on his own, feels his own mouth opening up like a sun-thirsty blossom as Sirius slips his tongue inside and Remus can finally taste him. It’s like fire and cinders and dead leaves and mud, but it’s good somehow, he’s desperately hungry for it, starving, ravenous like a beast himself. He clings to Sirius’s shoulders while moaning against his lips, all the sudden eager to bend to Sirius’s will— until Sirius breaks the kiss.

He sighs, staring down at Remus, obviously having a moment of inner turmoil. Remus can only look up at him and gaze into those eyes as grey and hazy as the storm that brought him in. He’s unsure what will exactly happen if he says yes, but for some reason he trusts this stranger with his life.

“Sirius—” He whispers the name more than he says it, his hands smoothing over the strong planes of Sirius’s chest as he pushes him back against the chaise. In one fluid motion, Remus throws his leg over Sirius and straddles his lap, grinding down against the long, hard length he can feel between his legs. 

Threading his fingers through Remus’s curls, Sirius pulls back gently, exposing the slender column of Remus’s pale throat. Remus makes a sort of anguished whimpering sound, then Sirius surges forward to his neck, hungrily lavishing it with gentle nips and kisses as he grips Remus’s hips, rocking up against him.

“Please say yes, Remus, gods, I want you so badly,” Sirius whines, sounding a bit like a pitiful dog as his hands move down Remus’s back and cup his ass, and Remus nearly bursts open with pride to have this gorgeous man beg for him. 

“Tell me what to do,” Remus says, purring into his ear, his ass steadily grinding against Sirius’s denim-clad cock. He’s barely holding it together, can barely fight the insistent urge to strip naked and let himself be taken there on the chaise, but Sirius surges upward to kiss him again, cradling Remus in his arms as he holds him close.

“Get your coat,” Sirius mumbles against his lips, “we’re going into the forest.”

  
  
  


Dead leaves crunch underfoot beneath a canopy of dim starlight as Remus follows Sirius blindly into the woods. It’s unknown where he’s being led tonight or what will happen to him— all he really knows is that the pull he feels toward Sirius can’t be shaken off, like it’s some innate instinct that has been buried inside him forever and is only just now clawing its way out to breach the surface. Remus is a moth and Sirius is the light, and whether or not that light is actually a flame that will consume him entirely he will soon find out. Somehow, he doesn’t even mind either way. He will continue following Sirius’s shine through the darkness.

It’s a chilly autumn evening— cold enough to make Remus shiver, even with a knee-length faux fur coat on as his breath puffs out in a cloud of white mist from between his lips. Remus pulls his coat tighter around himself and trudges on nevertheless.

Sirius is sure of foot, stepping over fallen branches, hopping over puddles, and dodging prickly bushes. He knows where he’s heading despite the lack of a path or any obvious landmarks, and when the two men finally come to a clearing amidst the pines and sycamore trees, he stops and turns to Remus.

“It’s time.”

There’s nothing more here than an ominous circle of grey stones and a beam of bright moonlight shining down upon it. Sirius steps into the circle, then reaches a hand out to Remus. Remus clasps the proffered hand and allows himself to be pulled into the space.

“What is this?” he asks, carefully stepping over the stones, watching as Sirius begins to slip out of his jacket.

“This is where we do the ritual,” Sirius answers simply, tossing the jacket on the ground just outside of the circle. “Normally it would have been exactly where your building is, but since that ground has been desecrated there’s not as much power. I was able to come up that way but I can’t bring you back down with me, so I had to find a new location.”

Remus looks up at him and swallows, the sudden realization that he’ll likely never leave these woods alive dawning on him as Sirius pulls Remus’s coat from his shoulders and tosses it aside with his own. He shivers as the cold air hits his bare arms, but Sirius’s large hands come up to warm him, the heat surrounding him like an inferno, and suddenly it’s too hot and he can’t wait to get out of his clothes even though he’s barely wearing anything at all.

Sirius leans down to kiss him again, taking his face between his hands gently, and Remus can feel himself being filled up with that fire, like hot liquid pouring into his mouth and down his throat. It heats him up, all the way down to his toes, and before he realizes it he’s swooning in Sirius’s arms, weak and dizzy with lust.

Sirius holds him steady as he lowers Remus to the ground, his hands moving down Remus’s body, delicate fingers skimming along the bare skin of Remus’s torso. He catches the hem of his shirt and breaks their kiss as he pushes it up to expose more skin, inch by inch, until Remus pulls it over his own head, shaking his curls out and lying back in the leaves.

“Gods, look at you,” Sirius breathes, smoothing his hands over Remus’s stomach and chest, stopping to thumb over his pale pink nipples, pinching lightly until they perk up and darken. “You’re absolutely perfect.”

A blush creeps up Remus’s neck. His body is on fire beneath Sirius’s hands, burning red-hot as Sirius’s fingers move to the button of his pants. 

They undress one another slowly and carefully there in the clearing and Sirius piles their discarded clothing outside of the circle. Only for a fleeting moment does Remus worry about potential prying eyes other than raccoons and owls until he is lying beneath Sirius naked and Sirius is hovering over him, fully hard and the image of a man so beautiful he’s barely more than a mirage. He is everything Remus has dreamed up, all of his fantasies come to life not only in the way he looks, but also in the ways he speaks and moves and reveres Remus. They take their time to touch every inch, to kiss every exposed bit of skin as they both sink into one another in the leaves and dirt, eager hands smoothing over their most intimate parts, and Remus isn’t afraid anymore. He’s ready for whatever comes next.

“I want to go with you,” Remus pleads as he reaches up to tangle his fingers into Sirius’s hair. He tugs his head back gently and Sirius’s lips curl into a snarl, but the look on his face is more blissful than angry. Remus presses his mouth to Sirius’s shoulder, kissing his way up his neck, to his ear, and whispers, “Tell me what it would be like.”

“You’ll be my prince,” Sirius says into the space between Remus’s neck and shoulder as he rolls his hips between Remus’s open thighs, eliciting a shuddering gasp from him. “My special one. You won’t need anything but me. It’ll be just us, just this, as much as you want. Just say the word.”

Sirius moves his lips over Remus’s chest, his quick tongue flicking out to lap at a nipple before he sucks it into his mouth, causing Remus to moan as he tilts his head back. Sirius dips down low, leaving a trail of fiery kisses down Remus’s stomach and along the underside of his thigh as he props it up over his shoulder. He licks his thumb and presses it against Remus’s hole but doesn’t push in, only rubs gently, tickling just the way Remus likes— something Sirius could only know if Remus had told him. Or if Sirius had read his mind.

“Fuck,” Remus whimpers, watching as Sirius moves his mouth lower between his legs, watching as his tongue teases the tip of his prick, watching as he sucks two fingers into his mouth then begins to work Remus open as he swallows his cock down. Remus moans, his toes curling in the mud, and when Sirius’s fingers push into him and brush against that sweet spot deep inside, his grey eyes flashing unnaturally as he pulls Remus under his spell, Remus knows he only wants one thing— to feel this warm and this good and this pure forever. “Take me, Sirius,” he begs, his hands scrabbling at Sirius’s shoulders, “please. I want to go with you.  _ I want to go with you.” _

Remus’s head is foggy as Sirius makes love to him there in the woods surrounded by rocks and trees and chirping crickets, their naked bodies slick with sweat and caked with the loam of the forest floor as they roll over one another, hands moving freely and clinging to one another. Remus pushes Sirius back into the leaves as he climbs on top, Sirius’s fingertips digging into the flesh of Remus’s ass as he moves above him, taking all of Sirius’s length inside of him. He’s disoriented, confused, surely still on his way to slowly going insane when he feels the ground beneath his knees tremble and quake.

“What is that?” he asks, staring down at the dirt. A few insects skitter away as the ground within the circle cracks open, and Remus jumps a bit, holding onto Sirius.

“Don’t stop,” Sirius begs him. “You’ll be fine. I’ve got you, darling. We’re only going home.”

There’s a quick flash of lightning across the deep blue sky as black clouds begin to roll in, reminiscent of the storm that brought Sirius here to him. 

Remus trusts him, so he doesn’t stop. Even when the bright orange fire from beneath them begins to glow through the cracks in the earth, even when the thunder rumbles and the night’s critters run off for shelter, even when the sky bursts open and rain pours down upon them, even when they’re both covered in mud while water drips into their eyes, Remus keeps moving, keeps his eyes fixed on Sirius’s strange eyes, keeps panting, keeps moaning, keeps begging for more, keeps chasing that release. He can feel it coming, it’s just there on the edge within his grasp, and when Sirius tilts his head back and howls into the night like a beast, sharp teeth flashing, clawed fingers sinking into Remus’s back, flames dancing all around them, Remus screams and comes with his thighs quivering and they both fall, consumed entirely by the earth.

  
  
  


Albus Dumbledore stands with Peter outside of Moonstone just at the tail-end of normal business hours, but when no one comes to the door or answers his phone calls he lets himself and his maintenance man into the building. 

“Remus?” he calls out, but there’s no response. Nothing looks amiss, so he assumes his tenant has just stepped out as he heads to the basement with Peter.

“I swear, there was a hole,” Peter says, glancing away from the floor and up at Albus curiously. “Deep as hell, too.”

Neither of them have any explanation for this, so Albus rings Remus again.

  
  
  


Alice Longbottom is jogging in the woods when she finds the cracked iPhone ringing in the pocket of a crumpled up fur coat. There’s only a pile of women’s clothing here and the ground looks strange, so she takes her own phone out to call the police.

  
  
  


Lily Potter notices the red and blue lights flashing through the bakery window as she’s packing up her usual box of danishes to bring to Remus. She locks her shop up and hurries to  _ Moonstone _ where a small crowd of onlookers have gathered outside. 

“What’s going on?” she asks one of the officers, a tall man with  _ SHACKLEBOLT _ on his name tag. “Is Remus okay?”

“You know Mr. Lupin?” he asks, reaching around to his back pocket and flipping open a notebook. “What’s your name, miss?”

“Lily Potter,” she answers, beginning to panic. “I’m Remus’s friend. Where is he? Is this anything to do with the guy he was seeing?”

“You mean uhhh—” Shacklebolt pauses, running a finger over his notes. “Gideon Prewett? Or Benjy Fenwick?”

“No, there was another guy. A new guy he was excited about. I never saw him.”

“I saw him with a woman,” a short blond man pipes up from beside the elderly man she recognizes as Remus’s landlord. “Just yesterday. Really beautiful and dainty. Blonde hair. They were getting pretty hot and heavy. Didn’t catch her name, though.”

“What?” Lily furrows her brow. “Hot and heavy? Remus is gay.”

“Uhhh, not from where I was standing,” the man says, grinning. “Anyway, I overheard them making plans for last night.”

“Alright.” Shacklebolt clicks his pen. “Gonna need all of you to give statements down at the station. You too, sir,” he says, nodding to the landlord.

  
  
  


Across town, Argus Filch sits in the corner of his living room floor with his arms wrapped around his legs, sputtering manically about a demon dog with Hell flashing in its eyes as it crawls out of the ground. 

No one misses him when he disappears.


End file.
